She was 92 when she died of natural causes yesterday. This woman, who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955, is considered the "mother" of the civil rights movement. Her arrest triggered a boycott of the Montgomery, AL bus system for over 300 days. The boycott was orchestrated by a baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa and her family were forced to move out of the state to Michigan afterwards, due to death threats and harrassment by white racists intent on keeping discrimination alive. Rosa was sitting in the "black" section of the bus when the driver demanded that her and three other blacks give up their seats to a white man since the white section was full. She refused and the rest they say..is history. She was charged and found guilty of disorderly conduct. A year later, the City of Birmingham was served with papers declaring bus segregation unconstitutional.
Rest in peace dear woman, god knows you earned it. She will hopefully meet up with those that went before her, such as MLK Jr., the children who died in the church bombings, the voter registration trio killed for attempting to register blacks to vote and her husband Ray who died in 1977.
